They got this new deal now - you find the book you want, put your zip code into the In-Store Pickup box, and if you're lucky it tells you that your book is available at your local bookstore - at the Amazon price.

No shipping costs. No waiting for the UPS truck. You just click, and go pick it up.

So I click, and I go, and I get my book. Fifteen bucks. Ordinary people in that same store are paying twenty-five bucks for the same frigging book.

Cheaper. Faster. Better for me.

How is this possible? It's possible, because the folks at Borders aren't stupid. Sure, they'd rather sell it to me for $25, but they figure that once I'm already at the Amazon web page they are pretty much going to lose this sale anyway. Why not make me a last-minute offer? After all, even small profit is a hell of a lot better than nothing.

The folks at Amazon aren't stupid, either. They probably get a buck right off the top, with no need for inventory, no need to pay some guy in the shipping department, no need to worry about returns. They basically send two emails, and the deal is done. If I got paid a buck every time I sent two emails, I'd be a fucking millionaire. They got themselves a nice little gig there.

And me? Yeah, that's the beauty part: I come out best of all.

I find my book in seconds, and I know its in stock and waiting right there for me. I don't even have to look for it on the fucking shelf! I get it dirt cheap, too - cheaper than I'd ever get it before - and I get it right now.

Here's another thing - a few months ago I started buying used books from Amazon, and that's worked out great, too. I usually go for the nearly-new volumes, mostly paperbacks, and they average about 10 bucks a pop after shipping. I've bought, and read, more books in the last six months than I have in the last six years.

That's good for Amazon. It's good for the individual book sellers. It's good for me. It's good for the whole goddamn world.

In a previous post, I described a potentially serious problem for the Kerry campaign, and speculated about how Kerry might respond. (In brief, the story involved Kerry's presence at a meeting where a plot to assassinate six US Senators was seriously discussed; Kerry categorically denied being at this meeting, but newly-uncovered FBI documents place him at the scene).

Now remember, this was the meeting where John Kerry resigned his leadership position in the VVAW because his colleagues planned the largest mass assassination in American history. Kerry fought against the plan, and quit on the spot rather than be associated with these people any further. This meeting lasted three days.

Is there even a single person in America who believes he does not recall this? Do you suppose that even his own staff believes it?

The funny thing is, I could forgive for this if he came clean, and I suspect a lot of his supporters would, too. It was a long time ago, and things were really crazy then; Kerry spoke up and did the right thing, and no real harm ever came of it. The only thing you could hold against him is the fact he didn't rat out his friends, and even that can be forgiven if you believed that he knew they'd never really do it.

But now he's offered up this obvious lie and all his supporters are supposed to go along with it, even to be a party to it. Just say whatever it takes to win, John. We don't care.

All the pretense is gone. I suppose that will be a good thing, in the end.

The problem? The FBI had the whole place under surveillance, and they reportedly have files showing that Kerry was present at this meeting. There are also several witnesses, some of whom are Kerry supporters, who also claim that he was there.

Now, Kerry, to his credit, supposedly argued forcefully against the assassination plan, and quit on the spot because of it. So why would he lie about being at this meeting?

So how's he going to get out of it? I can already imagine a few different approaches:

1) "Yes, I was there, and no, I didn't report it. Those were difficult times and I was a much younger man. I knew they would never follow through with such an outrageous plan, and I knew I could not remain as their colleague."

This is good, probably good enough to get him out of trouble. It's honest, forthright, and unambiguous. My call? He's not man enough to do this. He doesn't have the character to pull it off.

2) "How DARE you impugn my patriotism! This sort of guilt-by-association is the hallmark of the republican smear machine. I was in Vietnam! I don't have to apologize for anything."

This is a distinct possibility - it makes him look strong, tough, and it dodges the issue. Just the sort of crap I'd expect.

3) "It's all a lie - the evidence is a lie, the witnesses are all lying, the whole thing is preposterous".

This is what we are seeing now, from his supporters. Won't hold up to scrutiny, though.

Early reports suggest that the Socialists will be winning the elections in Spain today.

At the risk of oversimplifying the situation, we are seeing a contest between those who would pursue the war on terror, and those who would withdrawal from it. The appeasers appear to have won.

The people who delivered the bombs last week will have won, too. Congratulations to you all.

I predict two direct consequences of this. First, if these results hold, Spain will have bought itself another decade of violent harassment from Muslim extremists. I expect that we will soon hear demands from the terrorists that those arrested for the blasts be released, and why not? This sort of extortion is clearly effective, so it will be employed over and over again. This is what happens when you are weak, and you refuse to fight back.

Second, I expect a similar attempt to influence our election this fall. Frankly, I'd be shocked if the terrorists were to take any other lesson away from this experience. They surely imagine that they have found a valuable insight into the workings of Western democracy, that nothing brings the anti-war voters to the polls like a fresh massacre on their own soil.

Of course, they would misjudge us terribly, but they have gravely misjudged us before.

Update:

Of course, I should also point out that we can now expect similar attacks across the rest of Europe.

Just think of it as another of Socialism's gifts to Western Civilization.

Until a few minutes ago, I wasn't so sure. There is good evidence that ETA was solely responsable for this attack, and there is also good evidence to suggest that Al Queda was involved. Others have speculated that both groups may have combined forces, which seems odd, considering the Catholic heritage of the Basque people.

I've saidrepeatedly that an attack like this would be a bellwether. The bad guys have regrouped, and reconstituted their ability to project force over distance. They had been unable to do this for over a year.

If they really have rebuilt their ability to logistically support their operations overseas, they will hit us again, here in the US, at their earliest opportunity. They will not wait for us to find them and break them up before they can act.

I was cleaning out some old links when I ran into this old post, which refers to this one, which made my blood run cold when I first read it. It still does.

The short version of the story is that terrorists are known to have trained to capture small groups of civilians, and to kill all of them. The author, (correctly, in my opinion) suggest that the only response to this sort of problem is an instantaneous, desperate counterattack.

People pretty much agree that this is the right thing to do in an airplane, even in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, but there is less consensus about it in other situations. A barehanded counterattack against ordinary criminals is arguably not a wise decision, but terrorists are an entirely different matter. Such a decision is a personal one, of course. You, and perhaps those around you, will live and die by the consequences of your actions, either way.

The author does pose an interesting question - do you know how to place an AK into operation? Well, do you? It's quite simple, really.

Here's a typical AK-style rifle:

If you want to own a rifle like this, you'll need to learn to store it, shoot it, and maintain it safely, and that's quite a bit more than I can cover right now. Owning a gun, like driving a car, can be a perfectly safe and prudent thing to do, but it requires a minimum of competent training lest you become a deadly hazard to the human race.

However, if you just want to pry an AK from the cold, dead hands of an attacker and make it go bang, that's easy. Assuming it's already loaded, there are just two steps:

First, we need to release the safety (it's the big lever there, shown in yellow). The back of the lever is fixed, and the front part moves up and down. You press on the red dot there, where there is a little shelf for your finger. Push it DOWN, all the way DOWN. Think of pushing it towards the trigger, to make the trigger work.

Chances are that the gun can be fired now. If you want to be certain (and you do want to be certain) you'll need to perform the next step:

See that yellowish part? That's called the bolt. The bolt slides back and forth inside the gun, and there's a big spring behind it to keep it pushed all the way to the front. We need to draw the bolt all the way to the rear of the weapon, and then let it go. The little red part there is a handle that sticks out the side of the bolt about a half-inch or so, and that's the part you grab. You can just hook a finger over that lever and pull it back, just as hard as you can. When the bolt goes all the way back, it stops, and your finger can just slide right off. The spring will push the bolt forward again. Don't try to ease it back, and don't try to help push it forward, either. Just slam it back as hard as you can, and let the spring take care of the rest.

If the previous owner had already performed this operation, an unfired bullet will pop out of the side of the rifle and land on the floor when you do this. That's OK, just ignore it.

Now you're ready to go. The rifle will fire one shot each time the trigger is pulled. There is no need to repeat any of these steps, you just keep pulling the trigger until the weapon is empty.

If you've had some experience with other firearms and know how to handle them safely, this ought to be enough for you. If you have not had experience but you think this stuff is worth knowing, the time to get that experience is now. Leave a comment or send me an email and I'll help hook you up with a qualified instructor and help you get started out right. Learning to shoot is safe, it's reasonably inexpensive, and it's a hell of a lot of fun.

Kids today... young women running around with their pants down below their hips and their thongs showing, clear as day. If I believed in god I might believe that my personal prayers had finally been answered, but most people my age only seem to be appalled. Surely this suggests some sort of serious social breakdown, heralding another generation of unwanted children, poorly raised by their oversexualized teenaged mothers.

Well, it might, if teen pregnancy rates not recently fallen to record lows. In fact, teen pregnancies - not the birth rate, mind you, but pregnancies - have been falling steadily for years. Better birth control is part of the reason, but another large factor, surprisingly, is that these kids are having less sex in their teen years than we did. As a result, abortion rates have been falling as well.

Lots of people won't like it. Of course, that doesn't mean it isn't true.

You've all heard about the new Iraqi Interim Constitution, but you probably haven't had a chance to see it for yourselves. USSC found a copy here, and it's remarkable stuff. Here's a few excerpts:

All Iraqis are equal in their rights without regard to gender, sect, opinion, belief, nationality, religion, or origin, and they are equal before the law... Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of his person.

Public and private freedoms shall be protected... The right of free expression... The right of free peaceable assembly and the right to join associations freely, as well as the right to form and join unions and political parties freely... Each Iraqi has the right of free movement in all parts of Iraq and the right to travel abroad and return freely.

Each Iraqi has the right to demonstrate and strike peaceably... the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religious belief and practice...

Police, investigators, or other governmental authorities may not violate the sanctity of private residences... all persons shall be guaranteed the right to a fair and public hearing... the accused is innocent until proven guilty pursuant to law, and he likewise has the right to engage independent and competent counsel, to remain silent in response to questions addressed to him with no compulsion to testify for any reason, to participate in preparing his defense, and to summon and examine witnesses or to ask the judge to do so. At the time a person is arrested, he must be notified of these rights.

The budding economist in me is particularly pleased by this section, which provides for stable, transferable property rights - the foundation for a free market economy:

The right to private property shall be protected, and no one may be prevented from disposing of his property... No one shall be deprived of his property... Each Iraqi citizen shall have the full and unfettered right to own real property in all parts of Iraq without restriction.

Overall, this is an incredibly ambitious step; if they manage to get even half of this right, they will have accomplished nothing less than a democratic revolution. Getting it even half right will be difficult, and I can promise that there will be many setbacks, and many tough challenges ahead. I can also point out that never, to my knowledge, has any Arab people had an opportunity even remotely like this one. They are entitled to their shot.

Freedom isn't free, and it never has been. You've got to earn it, and you've got be worthy of the prize.

This is the crux, right here - the fate of that last line is the fate of their nation:

Islam is the official religion of the State and is to be considered a source of legislation. No law that contradicts the universally agreed tenets of Islam, the principles of democracy, or the rights cited in Chapter Two of this Law may be enacted during the transitional period. This Law respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people and guarantees the full religious rights of all individuals to freedom of religious belief and practice.

Until a few hours ago, I actually had some sympathy for Martha Stewart. Insider trading is a rather poorly-defined offense, and Stewart was charged only for lying about her actions, not for the actual sales of her stock. It seemed to me that she had been railroaded a bit, and that this was the sort of case where a little prosecutorial discretion might have been appropriate; I felt that she should have been offered an easier way out.

Keep in mind, Stewart was worth hundreds of millions of dollars; at the time, she probably made well over $200k per week in interest alone. She could have 'fessed up, paid her little fine and gone on with her life, but no....

Instead, we get an elaborate, bullshit story that falls apart on the witness stand, burying both her and her broker; worst of all, her shareholders, who were guilty of nothing more than trusting this idiot, lose millions of dollars virtually overnight.

Now, I can forgive greed, especially among ambitious people who have worked hard and built something of great value; greed is part of that equation, and to the extent that greed drives creation, it is a small evil. I can forgive simple dishonestly, having honed that art myself on more than one occasion, and I can forgive a lingering contempt for authority, too; I'd be a hypocrite if I told you any different.

How many lawyers and advisors do you suppose this woman had? How many of them tried to convince her to own up right away, or to at least accept the deal she was offered? I'd bet these wasn't one of them who suggested she take her chances in federal court. Hell, even I know better than that.

She took a sucker bet, and she lost, and all the people who trusted her lost, too. That doesn't make her a bad person, but it does mean that she deserves what she gets.

Ithaca, NY is a pretty liberal town, sometimes annoyingly so. When I heard that Ithaca's new mayor, Carolyn Peterson, was about to wade into the gay marriage debate I figured we'd have another fiasco on our hands.

Instead, Mayor Peterson devised a plan that is actually humane, democratic, prudent and fair. I was shocked.

Same-sex couples in Ithaca will be allowed to apply for marriage licenses, and the City Clerk will forward their applications to the state. Of course, under current state law these applications will be denied, but then these couples will be in an excellent position to sue the state of New York on constitutional grounds. The city of Ithaca has pledged to be a party to such lawsuits, on the side of the gay couples.

Nobody is breaking the law. The people responsible, on both sides of the dispute, are being held accountable, and a definitive judicial review is almost a certainty. Nobody is ever held in legal limbo, and most importantly, it's an elected official, not an appointed one, that has taken lead here.

It's almost as if we are all acting like grown-ups about this. It's incredible.

I give big credit to Mayor Peterson for crafting this thoughtful solution to a contentious, unavoidable issue. I wish the mayor of San Francisco has done the same.

Kevin at The Smallest Minority offers an outstanding post today, inspired in part by a discussion we had here. He illustrates what I believe to be the great Achilles Heel of our republic; the future of our freedom depends utterly upon the opinions of judges who, all too often, allow their own preferences to color their decisions.

As I read Kevin's post, I was reminded of a terrific Antonin Scalia quote on this very same topic:

If you haven't heard about this yet, you will - the 5th Circuit recently upheld a 'warrentless search' of a private home. On the face of it, this suggests stunning breach of civil liberties, to say the least.

The Volokh Conspiracy provides a link to the (surprisingly readable) actual decision. It's a complex issue, but personally, I don't have a problem with it. The gist of the matter is this:

I'll go out and take my accustomed position on that high, exposed limb - I'm strongly pro-choice, and I don't think she should be charged with anything, especially not murder.

Let's be clear; this woman, as described in this story, is either a mental case or a total piece of shit. But before your emotions get ahead of you, imagine that she was a Jehovah's Witness instead of an ordinary asshat, and that she had refused medical treatment of religious grounds. That murder charge still sound like a good idea?

Let's further muddy the waters, and imagine that we had different doctors with different opinions about the risks she took. I believe it's ultimately her call to make, even if she's wrong.

Now, I realize that once her children are born, she can, and should, face criminal charges for withholding lifesaving medical care from them, for almost any reason. You have to draw a line somewhere, and reasonable people can disagree about where that line belongs.

I believe you ought to understand your own values, and accept the consequences of them. This is part of my pro-choice position, and I won't be hypocritical or weasely about it. As ugly as this story is, this is the price you have pay for that kind of freedom, and I'll accept that.

Imagine you could look into the night sky and see everything there was to see. Well, now you can - it's called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. (This thumbnail image is unimpressive, but the full-sized version is incredible):

This tiny slice of the sky - one-tenth the diameter of a full moon - contains something like 10,000 galaxies, each containing millions of stars. See that little white box at the top of the picture? Here's what's inside:

You can't usually see them, but the things are all around us, everywhere - the sky is just overflowing with them.

The Chameleon Card seems innocent enough at first. It's basically a universal credit card - you can swipe all of your cards into the reader, program the Chameleon with all the data, and then use the Chameleon to make your purchases, switching from card to card with the push of a button.

Hello? Identity Theft??! The bad guys buy this stuff too, you know.

Next time you hand your card to a waitress, think about this one while you are waiting for her to return...

The death penalty would not have helped us here; Watts was never convicted of murder, although he did later confess to many killings, even leading police to the bodies of three of his victims. The unusual disposition of his case was probably the best the police could do at the time.

A few new prisons would have surely done the trick, though, and Watts, like many of his vicious friends, would remain behind bars where they belong.

If mandatory release is a solution to overcrowded prisons, than mandatory truancy is a solution to overcrowded schools.

If you cannot adequately incarcerate the violent, you have failed as a civilized society. I'm sorry, but this just seems obvious to me.